


Closed Doors

by kathkin



Series: Ghosts [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-26
Updated: 2008-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adric wakes up, and something is very wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closed Doors

**Author's Note:**

> Set right after _Time-Flight_. Prequel to [No Such Thing as Ghosts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/873432).

  
Adric woke up.

Adric woke up lying on the floor of his bedroom. This seemed rather odd, as he couldn’t recall ever going to sleep on the floor of his bedroom. At first he thought that he must have fallen out of bed, but his bed didn’t seem to have been slept in. He was still fully dressed, and the door was standing wide open.

He lay there for a while and tried to remember what had happened the night before, but couldn’t. The last thing he remembered was... he wasn’t sure. All his recent memories seemed to have jumbled together. He decided something must be wrong, and that he should find the Doctor.

He climbed to his feet with some difficulty - he was tired, and, he realised when he stood up, rather light-headed. Maybe, he thought, he’d hit his head on something. That would explain why he’d been asleep, but not why he’d been on the floor.

“Doctor?” he called. His voice sounded rather strange. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Doctor?”

He headed out into the hallway, and along the corridor towards the console room. Once he got closer, he could hear voices, the Doctor and one of the girls... Nyssa, he thought.

The door was open, but neither of them seemed to notice him come in. “Doctor?” he said. “What’s going on?”

The Doctor didn’t answer. He kept talking to Nyssa. Both of them seemed... subdued, especially the Doctor.

“I still think,” said Nyssa, “that we should have waited for Tegan.”

“She’ll be fine. She’s where she wanted to go, after all,” said the Doctor.

“Doctor?” said Adric. “Where’s Tegan? Have you taken her home? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Where to now, then?” said Nyssa, before he’d even finished speaking.

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” said Adric. “I’m right here!” he took a few steps forward, into the room.

The Doctor was silent for a moment, leaning over the console. “Oh, nowhere for the moment. I don’t much feel like traveling.” He stood up straight and turned towards Adric.

“Doctor, please talk to me,” Adric said as the Doctor walked towards him. “Doctor, something’s wrong, I-”

The Doctor walked straight through him, as if he wasn’t there, then out the door, followed by Nyssa. He looked down at himself, and noticed something rather odd. He held his hands out in front of him, and - to his horror - he could see through them quite clearly. In fact, the sections of the console he could see through his hands were easier to see than he was.

He stared for a few long moments. Memory filtered in. It came back to him gradually - the Cybermen, and their plan, and being trapped on the freighter - and then turned and ran after the Doctor.

“Doctor!” he called. “Doctor, I’m not dead.” He caught up with them, and slowed to talk just behind them. “Doctor, something’s wrong. I’m not dead. I know you think I am, but I’m not, I’m really not,” the Doctor didn’t seem to hear him, and carried on walking. He tried Nyssa. “Nyssa, you can hear me, can’t you? I don’t feel dead, Nyssa. I don’t feel dead at all,” Nyssa turned her head slightly, and for a moment he thought she’d heard him, if only a little.

Then she and the Doctor turned into the kitchen, and she walked straight through him. The door closed, leaving him standing alone in the corridor. He tried opening it, but his hand passed through the handle. He tried walking straight through it, but all he did was bang his head. After a while, he leaned against the opposite wall, then slid to the floor and sat, waiting for them to come out again.


End file.
